


Ice Cream

by Cuppatea13



Series: The Stories of Arlie [5]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Clintasha - Freeform, F/M, Interlude, and sibling teasing, arlie & tasha bonding, but then it ends happy, future sisters!, grab the tissues, it's sad, totally a thing, with some Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-13 07:45:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3373448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cuppatea13/pseuds/Cuppatea13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint is an idiot. Tasha's annoyed. Arlie explains it all. (Main story is: Reliant, this is an interlude.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ice Cream

**Author's Note:**

> And we have an interlude- this is Arlie talking to Tasha that day when Tasha was upset because she didn't "get" it. And it's also Arlie realizing Clintasha is a thing and messing with her brother's mind (I have a brother, and I can guarantee you, if I ever am in a similar situation, I would do the exact same thing).
> 
> So here we have our fourth Interlude- read, review, and if you want another interlude, ask and you shall receive.

**December 28th, 2007 (Arlie)**

It's not every day that Clint shows up on my doorstep with Tasha without calling first. It's also not every day that Tasha is the one to begin the conversation.

I'm not surprised that instead of saying "hello" or anything normal like that she breaks out into a direct assessment of what the problem that brought them to me is.

"I don't get it."

I take a moment to absorb that particular phrase. Clint looks at a loss and Tasha looks annoyed and agitated. If it was something cultural or a SHIELD thing, they wouldn't have come to me. Clint can explain or Phil could. It could be a girl thing, but I doubt that because then Clint would look a  _lot_  more awkward and besides, I think Tasha's sorted all that out before she ever met us.

Ah- something about why Tasha is getting a second chance, then.

"Come in. Clint- it's a girl's day, you can come back when we call you."

I then slam the door in my brother's face after grabbing Tasha and pulling her into the room.

"Lemme guess- why you get a second chance?" I ask as I head to the kitchen. This requires ice cream.

"I don't understand- out of everyone he could have saved- why  _me_?"

I grab the whole tub of mint chocolate chip from the freezer and skip the bowls. I grab two spoons and sit on the couch. Tasha gracefully folds herself next to me. I really need to figure out how she moves that gracefully- it's seriously impressive.

"Eat up. You need to understand something about my brother. He desperately wants to be redeemed. He thinks he never will fully get there but if he works hard enough he might just stumble into an opportunity that will wipe the slate clean. Well- in the back of his mind he thinks that, he tries not to dwell on it because he doesn't want to get his hopes up. Anyways- Phil always talks about conviction- it's his thing. Clint talks about redemption.

"So you see, it's not so much about  _you_  as it is about  _Clint_."

"So I have nothing to do with it?"

"No- you have everything to do with it."

"I don't understand."

"Eat some of the ice cream- it helps."

"You've made that up."

"You're eating it anyways."

"Explain to me again."

"OK- listen. It's Clint and you- that's why you've got this chance. It's not just you, and it's not just Clint. Now, my brother- he's done bad things. A lot of them. And so, to him, practically everyone in comparison is innocent and better than him. He puts himself on the bottom totem pole."

"I don't understand that expression."

"In this circumstance it means he considers himself lower than everyone else. With the exception of a few people- those who hurt people for the fun of it. My brother does not consider them worth saving. Everyone else- he will save them if he can. Because he thinks he will never get his redemption, but he will go out of his way to make sure everyone else does. He saves people because Phil saved him- and he is frightened by what he could've become if Phil had never done that, and he doesn't want anyone else to have to continue down a road they don't want to be on. So he saves them. He saves people every day. Phil once showed me this file that Clint had asked him to keep- it's a list of all of Clint's good deeds. It's got stuff like taking out a human trafficker of children, and then it's also got stuff like convincing the woman at the market that she deserves more than her husband who beats her." I pause here, so beyond proud of my brother for that particular good deed. It hits close to home and I'm glad that even if I couldn't have had Clint beside me during that time in my life to help me, someone else did.

"So he saved me because he wants redemption?"

"Partially. And here's where you come into it. See- with Clint, there very rarely is one specific reason for doing things. There's usually quite a few that build up into one massive decision. Now my brother could've been you if he wasn't saved by Phil when he was. He recognized something in you he has and is trying to overcome. And he knows what it's like.

"So because you needed help, because he wants to give it, because you're capable of accepting it and giving everything to it, because of a whole lot of small things that added up into a big thing, my brother wants to save you."

"That makes sense."

"It does doesn't it?"

"Why couldn't Barton explain that?"

"He doesn't really examine his thought process, he kinda just goes with it lots of times."

"That's stupid."

"That's my brother."

We both shrug.

"It's just," she pauses. "I've done really unspeakable things."

"So has Clint."

"But I've done more."

"After a certain point, I think the actual numbers become meaningless."

"The numbers are never meaningless."

"Alright. But the thing is- I saw it. The article about the fire you were in as a kid."

"I don't really remember it. Or my parents."

I nod. I was expecting this. I had gotten something and was planning on saving it for Tasha's day- I knew she wouldn't have felt comfortable celebrating her actual birthday, so I thought the day Natasha Romanoff came into existence (with more than a little help from my brother) was a better day to celebrate. But this sounded like a better time to give it.

She needed it.

"Here," I hand her a small envelope. It's a pale pink and I've written "Natasha" on it. She opens it up and pulls out the single photograph inside.

It's the picture of her with her parents that we got from the article. I'd had it digitally enhanced and enlarged slightly. It looked good and I didn't bother putting it in a frame- this wasn't a photo to be displayed, it's meant for Tasha to keep close, as secret as everything else in her life is. Tasha stares at it for a long time before I break the silence.

"You're so focused on who you were as the Black Widow. So focused on the assassin part of you, you seem to think the part of you that was that little girl in the picture is gone. She's not. She's buried pretty deep, but she's still there. I'm not saying you've got to pull her out and let her become your life- that's stupid. But just like being the Black Widow will always be a part of you, being Natasha Romanova, daughter of Andrey and Katya Romanova, will also always be there."

"Ballet."

"Huh?"

"I used to dance with my mother- and she taught me ballet. I'd forgotten that. I wanted to be a ballerina when I was growing up, before I realized that being in the Black Widow program meant I wouldn't get the chance to be. But I'd forgotten that it was my mother who started teaching me. They used to give us ballet lessons in the Red Room, part of our training. Ballet teaches you a lot of things: grace, strength, endurance, how to stand up against pain. It's an art and a physical expression- just how they wanted us to turn the physical act of killing into an art."

I'm sitting beside Tasha, the ice cream sitting between us, forgotten. I let her talk. I know that with Clint it often helps him to just talk aloud and having someone in the room, listening without judgment, helps him let things go and heal. The wounds may scab and scar, but I can help stop the bleeding.

"I was taken from the fire- I know that. I was trained by a man who had me call him Uncle Ivan. He trained me and about twenty other girls as part of the Black Widow program. It was meant to help restore the glory of Soviet Russia- the Black Widow was to kill those who would stop us. The only way to graduate was to kill the others. When I was thirteen I killed the last girl and became the Black Widow. I was sent on my first mission within a month. Uncle Ivan was so proud of me, and I thought he loved me.

"He gave me dollhouses and toys when I was very little, spent extra time with me, training. I was his protégé. But I was his pet, not his niece."

"What happened?"

"When I was nineteen I found my file. I just paged through it, not thinking there would be anything there shocking. It was my file, after all. I was waiting for Uncle Ivan in his room so he could tell me the next mission. I found out that the fire in my parent's home was set by the Red Room, so they could kill my father, who spoke out against Sovietism, and when I survived Uncle Ivan thought I would be a perfect, and ironic, edition to the program. He went on for pages on how  _wonderful_  he found it to convert someone with the blood of an anti-communist to his star pupil for the Soviet cause. But that wasn't the end- it turns out they had been pumping me full of drugs, slipped into the food, for my whole life. They'd added things to make me stronger and smarter, but also things to make me more willing to follow orders. They made it so the chemicals in me would keep me from questioning them.

"I've had horrible things done to me by them; things I knew were wrong and hurtful. But it wasn't until I  _saw_  the truth about my parents and the treatments- there, in my Uncle's handwriting- that it all came to me and I realized: if Uncle Ivan loved me like he said he did, he would have  _never_  allowed this to happen to me.

"I killed him. He walked into the room, I stood there with the file in one hand and a knife in another and I killed him. Then I burned the entire complex to the ground.

"For weeks afterward I went through withdraw from the drugs- I had had them in my system for years. I came close to dying several times. I took jobs- contracts- because I couldn't think what else to do. I bought drugs I hoped were similar to what had been given me in hopes to help abate the symptoms and wean myself off. It took years. I was sick, I was miserable, everything I had believed in turned out to be a lie and now, with the drugs leaving my system, I questioned everything.

"I couldn't remember so many things from before the fire," she said softly, a finger lightly touching the photo- as if afraid the blood on her hands would cause it to wither and crumble away. I was struggling not to cry. Tasha had been through so much- more than anyone should ever go through. And I was hoping what I was reading between the lines wasn't true and I was wrong.

I didn't think I was.

The ice cream was melted.

"I'm gonna make you an offer you can't refuse."

"I don't understand."

"It's a  _Godfather_  quote."

"What does your godfather have to do with this?"

"Not  _my_  godfather-  _the_  Godfather. It's a movie. We'll watch it some other time. Catch you up on some American culture. But anyways- the quote was to lighten things up but since that didn't work I'm just going to go ahead with the plan. The offer you can't refuse is this: we're going to make some food. Actually, lots of food, and we're going to talk. We're going to try and sort this out into something more manageable and eat an unhealthy amount while doing it. Then we'll call my brother and you two can go back to SHIELD and I'll see you this Sunday like we planned. Got it?"

She nodded.

"Good. And we're also going to compile a list of movies you need to see because, seriously, you'll  _love_  the  _Godfather_."

We didn't fix anything. There was nothing we  _could_  do to fix any of Tasha's past. The only way to fix it would've been to take a time machine and stop it from happening. But we helped stop the bleeding. And we organized it so the information, all of it, was a bit easier to deal with.

I called Clint and told him to come pick up Tasha so she wouldn't have to walk to SHIELD. But it was when he saw her at the door that things got interesting. He looked her over quickly like he was checking for injuries. It was something I had seen him do a thousand times to me and to Phil. He then focused on her eyes as if he could assess her emotional state from looking. I suddenly realized he probably could. Tasha was hard to read for the rest of us, but Clint  _got_  her.

Well, look at that. My brother's in love.

With Tasha.

I'm trying really hard not to laugh at this point as Tasha walks out with her usual elegance after giving me a hug (Well, now I feel special) and my brother watches her go as if waiting to see if she might need help.

God, he's so hopeless.

I talk to my brother and he gives me all his attention the way he normally does and I'm relieved. Love won't change who my brother is- and really, I think he doesn't even realize it yet.

Time to mess with his mind.

"God, bird brain- could you be any more in love?"

I don't expound on that statement, I just give him a quick kiss on the cheek and hug goodbye and shut my door (once again) in his face. The look of shock and confusion was priceless. I'm struggling to breathe, I'm laughing so hard. This promises to be very interesting. Because I know something else no one knows.

Tasha's in love with him too.


End file.
